mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

For those who were holding out hope: Why, why did you do that to yourself?

EDIT: This is just one recruit. Michigan basketball is in great shape. I'm not going to delete the picture of Mr. Rogers with a gorilla, though, because there is no bad time to think about Mr. Rogers meeting a gorilla.

True, but when it comes to getting guys to the NBA, that's what Calipari does best. He goes "Do you want to got the NBA? I'll take you there." And then he does. Honestly, if you don't care about going to college and just want to get into the NBA, Calipari has the best record of doing so, so why not go there?

Dude...C'mon. It's not like the kid snubbed UM to attend some second-tier school. The kid chose to take his supreme talents to an NBA factory: UK. Calipari sets his kids up for success and makes sure they get to the pros, which is the kids' objectives. He's better at it than anyone (Coach K is pretty damn good at it too). I for one am pretty stoked that UM was - and is now - competing against the likes of UK for these special talents. It says our program has come a long way over the past 10 years.

Yeah - it sucks to lose Booker. But - hell - if I was in his shoes and my professional objectives were to make it to the NBA, I'd go to UK too. Pretty simple.

As much as we hate him, Coach K is probably closer to Beilein than Calipari in terms of recruiting - he seems to do more development and team-building, whereas Calipari is happy to load up on one-and-dones and make up with raw talent what he lacks in chemistry/experience.

Ya know. I would agree with you about Coach K's players through the 80s and 90s. However, I think he started recruiting players who knowingly were going to either be one-and-done (Elton Brand / Kyrie Irving) or take guys who would likely leave after their Sophomore years. On the same token, I think the market for college basketball really shifted to one-and-done blue chips and sophomore-based teams during that same period of time. So, maybe he was just riding the wave.

Net-net, I would say Coach K is somewhere between Calipari and Belein. He probably prefers to have someone that is raw and he can coach up. But he won't pass on a flyer (Jabari Parker).

No way does Kentucky have to pay players to go there. They have a fantastic (if skeezy) coach and have about as great a basketball tradition as you can get.

It certainly would not surprise me to later find out that guys there were not making SAT scores, not actually attending classes, etc. But you're really bitter if you can't see that Kentucky is massively attractive to Joe Schmo basketball recruit

This is not at all like Ole Miss. Ole Miss went from perennial SEC bottom feeder to suddenly bringing in multiple 5-stars long suspected to be heavy leans elsewhere.

Kentucky basketball, on the other hand, has been doing this for years. Booker is a kid that probably wanted to go to Kentucky for awhile, and jumped on the opportunity. Remember that he was not necessarily Calipari's plan A - so if he's dirty he's clearly not dirty enough to win everybody he wants.

After significant success at Memphis, a hot coach known for excellent recruiting transfers to a historically good SEC school in the process of dumping tons of cash into their facilities, and he starts picking up great recruits. As far as suspicion goes, that's far from a slam dunk.

And the wins he had vacated were ultimately for academic fraud in which he was not personally implicated, not cash money going out to recruits. The only provable thing is that he's had some players deal with shady agents.

Anyway, the point is that blaming this recruiting loss entirely on cheating is stupid and comes off as sour grapes. Maybe in a world where Calipari goes totally clean, he's not getting quite as many 5 stars, but he can still coach and he can still recruit, and he'd still be a formidable opponent for recruits.

With all due respect, in the years before Hoke came to UM, we were losing to App St. and Toledo. Our football team was an absolute tire fire - worse than UK's teams under Gillespie. And - all of a suden when Hoke shows up - 5-star recruits are like, "Damn, I wanna go to UM."

Actually, those recruits coming to UM is a bigger head scratcher than the studs going to UK. In UK's defense, their facilities were - and are - the absolute best. They had just hired a coach with significant experience, including deep runs in the tourneys, runs for national titles, etc. Moreover, he is a coach known for getting kids to the pros.

In contrast, when Hoke took over, UM's facilities were good and maybe one of the best (though not at the Oregon or Alabama level). However, Hoke was a total unknown outside of a select few: He had zero national recognition, no BCS experience, no championship experience, etc. Moreover, it's not like Hoke has a reputation for producing NFL first rounders (at least, not the way other coaches like Saban are perceived).

So - yeah - what's your point exactly? Because - by your logic - I'm starting to get really suspicious of our football recruiting.

You stated," And - all of a suden when Hoke shows up - 5-star recruits are like, "Damn, I wanna go to UM." "

We'll, looking at Hoke's classes in 2012,2013 and 2014 (obviously just committed at this point) we had a whopping total of 6% of those recruits being rated as a 5 star (Rivals). Yep, they're bustin' down our doors.

On the other hand, during that same timeframe, 66% of Kentucky BB recruits are 5 star (Rivals).

Ha! The same principle can be applied. The fact is that both programs were doing relatively poorly prior to their new coaches arriving, and then - all of a sudden – they start generating some recruiting success. That doesn’t necessarily mean that eyebrows should furrow.

Nevertheless, your argument is somewhat apples and oranges anyway. In the history of college basketball, it’s not uncommon for 66% (or – for better comparative purposes – a majority of) of powerhouse basketball rosters to be made up of blue-chip recruits. The UCLA dynasty is living testament to this fact (so is the Fab 5!). However, to my - albeit, limited - knowledge, no football roster in the country is comprised of 66% 5-star recruits!

My point above is simply that UK’s success recruiting is not an anomaly. It makes perfectly reasonable and rational sense. And – if you are skeptical of their recruiting success simply because of how poor their team was performing prior to the current head coach – then, by that logic, UM should be placed under the same level of scrutiny.

So it's a bit hard to compare. Blue blood programs can do what Kentucky did. Michigan football is getting back to that status. It's going to take a bit longer (hopefully just one more deep NCAA tourney run in 2014) to get back to that level.

Still have a chance with James Blackmon although the rumblings have him reupping with Indiana. One can hope, although I like our class and the direction the program is headed so no prob for me. Hope Devin has a great career. Just sucks we couldn't pull the local talent. Have to respect Calipari's moxy!

"There will be blood on the field and it
won't be mine. … Quote it. Let them
know."
Kyle Kalis

Kevon Looney has been the surprise of the day for me. I mean what a steal by UCLA. Have to give them credit especially after the roller coaster ride that program has been on since they made the Final Four with Kevin Love and the gang!

"There will be blood on the field and it
won't be mine. … Quote it. Let them
know."
Kyle Kalis

going on at Kentucky. There's no way serial cheater Calipari is stockpiling 5 star recruits without playing outside the rules.

Michigan's probably better off without any recruit who would choose a shady program like Kentucky anyway. Booker's probably a good kid and he'll probably do well no matter where he plays but choosing Kentucky over Michigan in basketball is simply a bad choice.

pointing out the facts. Calipari and Beilein typically recruit a different type of player and run different types of programs. One program is more likely to have players of good character who will stay more than a year and stay within the rules and the other... not so much. But maybe it's just random chance that Coach Cal is the only coach to have two Final Four appearances (at two different schools!) vacated and the only coach to pull in so many 5 star recruits in one class that they can't even fit on the court at one time. Just chance.